The state's health director said Monday afternoon
that there are suspected cases of swine flu in North Carolina,
but declined to say how many cases or where they were located.

Dr. Jeffrey Engel said Monday evening that officials are
involuntarily isolating patients who may have the virus. He
declined to specifically say how many suspected cases were
in the state, noting that the number is always changing, and
he declined to say where they were located.

"We're working very closely with providers, and they
are investigating cases on a daily basis," Engel said.

Investigators were gathering specimens and hope to know whether
the cases are "probable" some time Tuesday and will
seek confirmations by Wednesday.

Around 150 deaths in Mexico have been connected
to the swine flu, but only 18 cases have been definitively linked
to the virus through laboratory testing.

1600 more people have complained of flu-like symptoms
since the Mexican authorities publicised their concern about
the virus on April 23.

However, the number of new cases reported by Mexico's
largest government hospitals has been declining for the past
three days, according to government officials, from 141 on Saturday
to 119 on Sunday and 110 Monday.

Flu deaths are nothing new in the United States.
The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people died of flu-related
causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the U.S.

Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally
in an average year.

Experts have said that the danger of the new flu strain - which
has been misnamed
"swine flu", owing to the fact that it
is a combination of pig, bird and human viruses - is that it
is a primer for further mutations that humans may have no natural
immunity to.